Riot Recommendation

19 of Your Favorite Twisty Reads About Serial Killers!

Vanessa Diaz

Managing Editor

Book Riot Managing Editor Vanessa Diaz is a writer and former bookseller from San Diego, CA whose Spanish is even faster than her English. When not reading or writing, she enjoys dreaming up travel itineraries and drinking entirely too much tea. She is a regular co-host on the All the Books podcast who especially loves mysteries, gothic lit, mythology/folklore, and all things witchy. Vanessa can be found on Instagram at @BuenosDiazSD or taking pictures of pretty trees in Portland, OR, where she now resides.

This Riot Recommendation listing for your favorite twisty reads about serial killers is sponsored by Flatiron Books, publishers of Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh.

This summer, witness the the murder trial of the century.

But, the serial killer isn’t on trial. He’s on the jury.

Read Thirteen, the thriller Lee Child, Michael Connelly, and Ruth Ware are raving about.


We love thrills, chills, and scaring ourselves silly. That’s why we asked for your favorite twisty reads about serial killers! You gave us everything from reverting works of true crime to spine-tingling fiction. We may have to sleep with the lights on, if we can ever sleep soundly again.

Here are your favorite twisty serial killer reads!

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

The Alienist by Caleb Carr

The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Hush by Anne Frazier

No One Knows You’re Here by Rachel Howzell Hall

The Devil Aspect by Craig Russell

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

I’ll Be Watching You by Tracy Montoya

Engleby by Sebastian Faulks

My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Jackpot by Susan Fleet

Nailbiter series by Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson

Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History by Tori Teller

Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen

White Butterfly by Walter Mosley

Children of the Street by Kwei Quartey

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote